Kings’ penalty kill, a strength all year, becomes weakness in deflatin…

The Kings-Oilers NHL playoff series was supposed to be decided by the most elemental of showdowns: the unstoppable force versus the immovable object. In this case, Edmonton’s powerful power play versus the Kings’ deadly penalty kill.

But in Game 1 on Monday, the Kings’ penalty kill produced only self-inflicted wounds, allowing the Oilers to score three times in a 7-4 Edmonton win that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would indicate.

“It just shot us in the foot,” defenseman Drew Doughty said after the Kings stopped the Oilers just once in four power-play opportunities. “They’re just so good on the power play. So let’s just smarten up in that area.”

It’s not like the Kings didn’t see that coming. As Doughty admitted after Monday’s debacle, the team “talked about their power play so much before this series.”

Read more: Kings look uninspired in blowout loss to Edmonton Oilers in Game 1

And with reason. Edmonton scored on more than 26% of its man-advantage opportunities during the regular season, the best percentage in the Western Conference and fourth-best in the NHL.

But the Kings allowed just 39 power-play goals, third-fewest in the league; its 84.6% kill percentage ranking second in the NHL. Yet all that meant nothing in Game 1, with the Kings’ penalty kill allowing as many goals in a 20-minute span of the second and third periods as it did in the final nine regular-season games combined.

“Two things that have been, and are, strengths of ours are penalty kill and eliminating rush chances. It’s what we do well,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “And we didn’t do either of those well tonight.

“That’s the obvious. I think everybody saw that. We’ll have to fix that.”

The Kings have a lot to repair after watching Zach Hyman score a hat trick while Connor McDavid and…